Perhaps what Winston Churchill said in 1939 could be true today when one critically analyses the internal political affairs of local political parties, for their reality is what is defined.

The failure of the National Unity Democratic Organisation (Nudo) to pull off an elective congress over the weekend is another indication that political parties in Namibia are run like cuca shops, with no accountability or professionalism.

Intraparty elective congresses have proven to be a recipe for disaster for most, if not all, political entities in Namibia of late.

Most political entities emerge from what should be democratic exercises whose outcome is accepted by all  weaker, divided and polarised.

One wonders if political parties should hold these congresses at all – if all the results are always to the detriment of the organisation’s upward mobility.

Is it because in the build-up to these events, contenders play the man and not the ball?

Post-independence elective congresses have proven to be political parties’ Achilles heel.

Swapo has a history of controversial congresses.

Almost every post-independence congress or lead-up to congress has seen the party’s unity in tatters, and splinter parties spawned because of disgruntled and defeated members.

For the benefit of our younger readers, the genesis of our analysis dates to 2004 when the ruling Swapo party held an extraordinary congress.

The only item on the agenda for that congress was to elect the Swapo vice president, who would automatically be their presidential candidate that year, as Founding President Sam Nujoma’s third term was nearing a conclusion.

That congress pitted three Swapo stalwarts, Nahas Angula, Hifikepunye Pohamba and the late Hidipo Hamutenya, against one another.

A run-off was required to separate Hamutenya and Pohamba after Angula pulled out in the second round, rallying support behind Pohamba.

As fate would have it, Pohamba emerged victorious.

But that congress would leave Swapo divided. 

Eventually, Hamutenya and other Swapo bigwigs would go on to form the Rally for Democracy and Progress in 2007.

Except for the 2007 Swapo congress as well as those of 2012, 2017 and the recent one in 2022, all left the ruling party in a worse position than it was as far as unity is concerned.

Even now, some party members are pushing for an extraordinary congress to identify a presidential candidate. 

They feel the party’s constitution was sidestepped when party leaders endorsed Vice President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah as their presidential candidate.

This year, the ruling party was challenged in court by its members as to the legality of its current leadership, following the demise of party president Hage Geingob in February. 

The party has also not been able to tell the public how it funded its flashy new building, despite its secretary general promising to open its books.

The Rally for Democracy and Progress itself, despite only having a single seat in the National Assembly with much of its future looking bleak, is fighting tooth and nail to discredit, and knock party president Mike Kavekotora and his team off their perch.

Strangely, in 2019, Kavekotora received 243 votes against Nehova’s 133 and Hamutenya’s 100. 

Fourteen votes were spoiled. 

At that congress, Nehova told reporters that he accepted defeat. 

He went further to declare the election free, fair and credible.

Today, however, Nehova has reneged on his stance, and is challenging Kavekotora’s leadership.

For a party already limping, the internal squabble can only further diminish their prospects at the national polls in November.

We all saw what happened to the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA), now the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM), in 2013, when young McHenry Venaani took on veteran politician Katuutire Kaura in a David vs Goliath battle.

Although Venaani won the contest, the organisation suffered greatly, with Kaura later deserting the party he had known as home since the 1970s. 

Kaura would in 2017 join Swapo after claiming that the DTA at the time was no longer recognisable as it rebranded to PDM.

Going into this year’s congress already, Vipuakuje Muharukua, who many say is Venaani’s protégé, would challenge Venaani’s might. 

He would, however, soon run out of steam, as the internal process makes it difficult for anyone to challenge Venaani.

Like Kaura, Muharukua would jump ship to join Swapo – even before the congress.

Much of his departure is attributed to undemocratic processes within the party, as even before the congress, the party’s top brass had already decided that Venaani would contest unopposed at the top and his so-called impatience. 

It is peculiar that he, a staunch advocate for democracy in public, would agree with a situation where his dominance is endorsed through undemocratic means, wherein the PDM folklore has nothing to choose but Venaani for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

As election day draws closer, jostling and horse-trading by the country’s second-largest political party have gone into overdrive.

In December, the Landless People’s Movement (LPM) held its second people’s assembly, the congress, in their leftist lexicon. 

That event was to primarily endorse and rubberstamp the continuation of Bernadus Swartbooi and his inner circle’s reign. 

They had their way.

The revolving door of acrimonious exits by party leaders, and the entrance of the ideologically-ambiguous Michael Amushelelo at the purported leftist LPM, show that the party too does not have all its democratic ducks in a row.

In 2022, the Independent Patriots for Change had a gathering like an elective congress. 

That indaba, however, was an exercise to reaffirm founder, dentist-cum-politician Panduleni Itula’s grip on power.

The exercise also armed Itula with veto powers, meaning he would, from time to time, from his Shandumbala residence, dictate what happens or does not happen, including restraining elected officials in the Windhoek municipal council from doing their work without fear, favour or prejudice.

Meanwhile, to imagine how democracy functions or if it at all exists in the Christian Democratic Voice will only lead us to a cul-de-sac.

Even in new formations like the Affirmative Repositioning (AR) movement, it seems like opposing views are suppressed.

In November 2022, AR held its 2022 elective congress when about 400 activists converged under one roof to adopt its constitution, elect leaders into various portfolios, and map out the future in Walvis Bay.

At that gathering, the descending voices of Dimbulukeni Nauyoma, Paulus Kathanga and Simon Amunine, who were pushing for a rotation of councillors in the City of Windhoek to allow unemployed members of the movement with talent and energy to serve, were silenced forever.

Meanwhile, to their credit, the United Democratic Front (UDF), under the stewardship of president Hendrik Gaobaeb, has signalled to Namibians that politics is not about positions. 

It is a side that Namibian politics has not seen in a long time. Despite internal pressure to recall UDF stalwarts from the National Assembly Dudu Murorua and Apius Auchab, whom he defeated at their congress earlier this year, Gaobaeb believes it is in the party’s best interest for the two seasoned politicians to see through their National Assembly terms.

His focus is on strengthening the party’s structures and finances, as they prepare for November’s big day.

Rethink

All in all, closer analysis tells us that a lot of rethinking and reengineering of these democratic exercises are needed.

While most political parties preach democracy from the top of their lungs during the day, most are despotic, where strongmen and strongwomen rule with an iron fist. 

It is their way or the highway.

Think about the now-deregistered Economic Freedom Fighters (NEFF) for a moment.

Ten years after their formation, the NEFF has never held an elective congress to elect new leadership. 

The only leaders the party knows to this day remain leader Epafras Mukwiilongo and his right-hand man, Longinus ‘Kalimbo’ Iipumbu.

The recent decision by the Electoral Commission of Namibia to finally pull the plug on delinquent parties was met with near-delirious schadenfreude by some of their political opponents, denial and empty defiance by those booted, and surprise by those who have pleaded for the custodian of our democracy to do its work.

Accountability

Holding elected decision-makers accountable is not just the work of the media. 

Too often, the hard work of the media to expose and continuously point out wrongdoing falls on deaf ears.

The parties, who receive millions from Parliament every year on top of generous salaries and perks for their sitting members, should be ashamed of themselves for woefully failing to smell the test on accountability, transparency and intra-party democracy.

Parties fail to do even the basic administration required to be recognised as parties, while many parties preach democracy but practice dictatorship.

The PDM’s current parliamentary term has been characterised by court cases, internal squabbles and a very public divorce from the United People’s Movement. 

The party’s approach to wheelbarrowing handpicked candidates was overturned by the Supreme Court having to send its preferred candidates to the substitute’s bench – again at great cost. 

The party must now pay the ousted parliamentarians their salaries.

Again, you, the taxpayer, fund the ill-advised and illegal decisions by a leadership that now faces a challenge to its power.

It is you, the taxpayer, who hires and fires these parties through elections.